


Say Yes Damn it

by abratforhumanity (pyksil)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - High School, Dorks, Fluff, Gaming, High School AU, M/M, Mikasa is a bro, My precious precious dorks, RPG, So many people are hardcore gamers, Swearing, all of the pining, all of them - Freeform, dorks falling in love, ereri, if ya know what I mean, might get a little wink wink nod nod, winter formal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2016-01-09
Packaged: 2018-05-10 06:29:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5574457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyksil/pseuds/abratforhumanity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren, Mikasa and Armin attend Trost High, and things are going pretty much as planned. With the Winter Formal coming up, the three assume it will pass like it does every year, with Mikasa disappearing somewhere to do whatever it is that she does, Armin attempting and failing to ask out someone way out of his league, and Eren staying home and playing video games until he passes out from exhaustion. As these patterns begin to fall into place, everything changes when Eren has a few unexpected run-ins with a semi-famous senior that leave him with a black eye, a date, and a question mark at the end of his sexuality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Another dawn, another day

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all!  
> I don't own Shingeki No Kyojin (if I did, Ereri would already be canon (ﾉ^ヮ^)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧)  
> The updates will be sporadic, dorks will fall in love, and this will be one heck of a wild ride  
> Thank you for joining me on it .+:｡(ﾉ･ω･)ﾉﾞ  
> This is my first published Ereri fic, so please enjoy!
> 
> *Also, some editing to this piece may occur at a later date

“Hey honey,” Mikasa stepped out of her car, her eyes wide and shining as she linked her arm around mine.

“Uh, hey…” I began walking with her, my question evident on my face as she flicked her gaze from me to the car that was parked a few spots away. “Oh, hey gorgeous.” I instantly corrected, tightening my grip around her as she relaxed. She let out a mechanical laugh as we continued walking, stiffly placing her head on my shoulder as we marched from the parking lot into the school building and out of the sight of the black sports car. After confirming that we were out of the line of sight, Mikasa let out a rough sigh before stretching her neck and politely letting go, opting to instead shove her hands into the pockets of her coat and mumble something about stupid boys and their stupid obsessions with her. “Who is it this week?” I asked, startling her out of her angry murmuring.

“Huh?”

“Who’s the dick in the black sports car?” I tried again, adjusting my grip on my backpack strap.

“Oh,” her dark eyes sat processing for a second, before her brain kicked into gear, “Jean Kirschtein, age 17,  brother to Petra, age 20. He joined Trost High school this year, and therefore has a limited number of friends. He eats lettuce wraps for lunch every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and buys the school specials on Tuesday and Thursday. He was on the school baseball team for two months freshman year at his old school before quitting, and has recently joined the judo team in what I believe is an attempt to become closer to me. His hobbies include horseback riding, though he is at best mediocre, and he is allergic to flower pollen.” She rattled off these facts like she was reading from a card, and I just shrugged.

“At least he hasn’t approached you yet.”

“He has,” She sighed, “twice.”

“Twice?”

“The first time was at lunch,” Mikasa paused as we reached our first class together, sliding into our desks into the back row. “He choked out something about my hair, before running out of the room. The second was at Judo, where he complimented my technique after I pinned him.”

“Ooo, sounds like a real winner,” I teased, pulling out my history textbook. She shot me a look, her nose wrinkling slightly as she made a noise of disgust in the back of her throat. I chuckled as the bell rang, the rest of our class slowly filing into the room.

I had known Mikasa for almost as long as I could remember, and this wasn’t the first admirer that we’d dealt with. She was like a sister to me, and because I knew that she would probably end up hurting anyone that asked her out, I told her to pretend that I was her boyfriend before anything got out of hand. It was because of this that I knew that this “Jean” guy was actually getting pretty serious, and I hoped that whatever shtick we pulled off worked on him. I had seen Mikasa mess some people up.

Hospital level mess some people up.

“Psst, Eren?” Mikasa pulled me from my reverie, her lips tight and her eyes flicking between me and the teacher.

“Hmm?”

“Care to join us, Mr. Jaeger?”

“Yes sir.” I straightened my back, giving Mr. Pixis a nod and pounding my right fist over my heart in a mock salute. He just shook his head, continuing with the lesson as I sunk back down into my seat, flipping open to the page that we were on.

This blows.

 

\--

 

“ _That’s_ him?” I whispered, staring at the fluffy haired boy that Mikasa had just pointed out in the cafeteria.

“Don’t look,” she hissed, throwing her elbow into my ribs. I muffled a cry of pain, directing my gaze to her with annoyance as I rubbed my now bruised torso.

“Jeez you two, and you think you’re acting inconspicuous.” Our friend Armin plopped down at our table, dropping his tray of bread in front of him.

“Just bread again?” Mikasa’s focus instantly shifted from her newest stalker to the mushroom headed blonde, the contents of his tray making her eyes narrow.

“I like bread,” he defended, shrinking down into his sweater. Mikasa just shook her head, like she didn’t know what to do with the two of us, before throwing one of her oranges at him and continuing to chew her sandwich.

“Okay okay, let’s talk about something other than horse-face over there and Armin’s dietary habits,” I gestured around the table, “anyone got a topic?”

“The dance?” Armin perked up, his giant blue eyes glimmering with his dreams of the upcoming winter formal.

“I’m not going,” Mikasa immediately shot off in monotone, flicking a piece of her ebony hair over her shoulder. Armin looked like he had been burned.

“What?” His voice cracked, “Why?” She examined his face, calculating.

“You need help asking someone, don’t you?” She responded in record time, making Armin’s cheeks flame a startling shade of red.

“Wh-wha… I didn’t… I’m not-”

“Is it that one girl you were talking about earlier?” I cut in, remembering a conversation that I had had with my best friend not too long ago. “What was her name… Annabelle? Anna?”

“Annie,” Armin whispered, swallowing hard. “Annie Leonhart.” Mikasa let out a low whistle.

“Wow, you sure do know how to pick’em.”

“Sh-shut up,” Armin mumbled, making me give him a smile and a wink, “you too, Eren, knock it off.” I held up my hands in surrender, unable to keep the smirk off of my face.

“Hey, I didn’t say anything,” I cleared my throat, “she’s great, Armin. I fully support you asking her to the dance, just let me know where you want your burial to be.” Mikasa snorted, and Armin’s already tinted face flushed an even deeper shade of red. If Mikasa was considered somewhat scary to ask out, than Annie was a freaking nightmare.

“At least I have somebody I might ask! What about you, Eren, who’s gonna-”

“Well hello there,” A voice interrupted the blonde’s squeaking, and all three of us turned to see Fluffy-hair in person. None of us responded to his greeting, but I felt Mikasa begin to scoot backwards towards me. “I’m Jean,” he continued, taking our silence as a mutual introduction, “it’s nice to finally casually say hello to you,” he directed this to Mikasa, but by the way his voice was shaking I could tell that he was probably shitting his pants right now to get this close to her. A few more seconds passed with nothing being said, Mikasa’s eyes remaining a placid shade of grey and boring into him with what could only be described as complete disinterest.

“So,” I decided to break the barrier, “Jean, did you need to say something?” Mikasa took this as her cue to fully lay back into me, resting her head on my shoulder and burrowing her chin into her scarf with a sigh. Jean watched this motion with shock, his eyes widening and his jaw going slack. “Jean?”

“You bastard,” His voice dripped with fury, his expression switching from stunned to pissed within a matter of seconds.

“Wait, what?”

“Bastard!” Jean shouted, gripping the front of my shirt and raising me to my feet. Mikasa shot to her feet in a defencive stance before me, and Armin, for his part, raised one of his loaves of bread off of his tray and held it like a club. “I don’t even know you and I’m jealous!”

“Jealous?!”

“Everybody just calm down!” Armin tried to reason, wielding his tiny baguette like a strange shounen version of Thor.

“You don’t even give me a chance!” Jean yelled. By now, a crowd had begun forming around us, a few chanting out encouragements for a fight, and a few trying to reason with Jean like Armin was. “Why do you get Mikasa?!”

“Huh?”

“I wanted to take her to the dance!”

“HEY!” A voice boomed over the crowd, making all of the noise instantly die.The mass of people parted, and I strained my neck to see what caused the interruption. “No fighting on school grounds, dimwits.” I looked down to see a pair of sharp silver eyes glaring back up at me, the rest of the mystery person’s face covered with a handkerchief like something out of a videogame, their undercut rising from it and growing into a black sweep of hair that fell over their forehead. They continued to leer at me, momentarily switching to Jean before returning to me. “Oi, brat, what are you looking at?” I blinked, realizing that this question was addressed to me.

“Uh, I… um-”

“Look,” He sighed, running a gloved hand through his hair, “keep your schoolyard squabbles until _after_ school, okay? I don’t have time for this _mess_.” Horse-face and I nodded, mute with a strange mixture of respect and fear. Handkerchief locked his eyes with me one last time, his eyebrow twitching with an unreadable emotion, before he turned on a booted foot and walked out of the cafeteria the way he came in. As soon as he had left, everyone was buzzing with a newfound topic.

“Who _was_ that?” I asked in a daze, only slightly registering that Jean had dropped his hand from my shirt and was now standing facing the cafeteria exit, his face as pale as a sheet as he stared at the spot that handkerchief had left from.

“I’ve never been yelled at,” he murmured, his eyes reading trauma. “I-I’ve never been yelled at before.”

“Levi Ackerman,” Mikasa’s voice began spouting, her eyes going dim as she reached into the depths of her head for this knowledge, “age 18. He is a part of the Judo club, and a part of the elite special operations group that is sent to any national ranking Judo competition. He hates school oriented confrontations and can often be seen stopping them himself before they get out of hand, though if they pose no threat of causing any mess-related accidents he keeps his hands free, instead choosing to watch them from afar as a jest. He has a limited number of acquaintances, and spends most of his time with Hanji Zoe, age 18 and a member of Trost High, and Erwin Smith, age 19 from last year’s graduating class.” Jean turned to her in awe.

“Wait,” I felt my jaw drop, “Levi Ackerman? _That_ was Levi Ackerman?” Mikasa nodded, pursing her lips. Levi was pretty famous around the school, and in my Aikido club he was known simply as “Humanity’s strongest” due to his consistent record in Judo matches. He was also pretty well known for his cold personality, and startling lack of emotion. “He’s a lot…” I frowned, “ _shorter_ than I expected.”

“I’m surprised you’ve never actually seen him in person before,” Armin talked around his bread, part of his baked weapon now in his mouth. “I have chemistry with him last hour.”

“Really?” I tore my attention away from the door, grounding myself back into reality and coughing awkwardly as I noted Mikasa’s expression. “What?”

“Nothing,” she said carefully, grabbing her tray to dump as the bell signaling the end of lunch rang. “Nothing at all.”


	2. Another dawn, another game

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow.  
> I'm honestly speechless, you guys. The amount of hits that this has gotten overnight is amazing, and I don't know what to say.  
> Thank you for reading!  
> Enjoy another chapter (ﾉ^∇^)ﾉﾟ

“Care to explain to me _how_ you’re busy on a Friday night?” Mikasa asked me with her arms crossed, tapping her foot impatiently as I felt cold sweat slide down my back.

“W-well, you see…” I laughed nervously, fidgeting with the hem of my t-shirt. The truth was that one of my favorite RP games had updated, and I had been dying to upgrade my soldier from the Training Corps to a member of the Survey Corps, but to do that I had to do a pretty much impossible mission to get the “higher ups” in that squad to notice me.

I had unlocked it at 3 AM last night.

With this new update, I could now show my stats and the loot that I had collected from that mission to the leader of that regiment, but I had to do so quickly and I had to find a time when that player would be online. I might have looked at his log book a few times over the past few weeks to see when he was most often logged in, but that wasn’t weird or anything, right?

“This wouldn’t have anything to do with that “Giants” game you play, would it?”

“Titans,” I corrected her automatically, my face heating up as she raised her eyebrows. “Okay, fine, yes it does.” She sighed, shaking her head as she gave up hope and began unlocking her car. “Hey, at least I’m putting my energy towards something like this instead of partying.”

“You’re right,” She rolled her eyes, “how absolutely horrible it would be if you socialized instead of staring at your computer screen for hours on end every night.”

“I socialize,” I defended, fumbling with my keys as I unlocked my car in the space next to hers, “virtually.”

“Yeah, whatever you say.” Mikasa gave me a final wave before ducking into her car and driving off, the engine revving loudly as she had broken her muffler ages ago but didn’t care enough to replace it. I started my own car with a sigh, the ancient motors whirring to life as I creaked down the gas pedal and began my exit of the school lot. I waited my turn to merge, boredly counting the number of cars that streamed past be before a small spot opened up. I looked back to see Christa waving me forwards, a smile breaking out on my face. I mouthed “you’re an angel” to her, making her shake with laughter and continue waving her hand forwards. It was a shame that Christa already had a girlfriend, because I knew quite a few people (myself included) that would gladly line up at a chance of dating the bi-beauty. Just as I began to ease forwards into the procession of cars, a loud black sports car swept past me, pulling into the merger spot and scooting forwards with the line.

“Jackass,” I scoffed, squinting through the tinted windows but unable to see who had cut me off. Christa patiently continued waiting, letting me merge in front of her nonetheless.

Well, at least some people in this world cared.

 

\--

 

“I can’t believe we let him get away,” I groaned into my headset, my thumbs expertly flicking at the remote in my hands as I managed to veer away from an oncoming building. My small animated avatar shot his 3-D maneuver gear to the right, his limbs flailing as my barely there precision score let me safely land on a roof a few houses over. A few seconds later, he was joined by two more characters, their digital emotions bars reading “ _Disappointed.”_

“Eh, next time we’ll kill him,” A static laced voice poured through my headphones, the owner making his avatar give me a salute. Because this game was still pretty far into it's beta, all of the base avatars looked the same. The only thing that the players could really customize was hair and accessories. It was because of this that I had to zoom in on the heads of my counterparts to make sure I was seeing them correctly. 

“Connie, you do realize this was all your fault?” Another voice chimed in, the owner cackling.

“Sasha, I swear that I’m going to steal all of your gold coins the next time we camp out,” Connie growled, drawing his swords.

“Alright, you two, take it easy,” I stepped between them, making sure that my blocking shield was up in case the two nimrods decided to try something anyways. “Don’t we have more important things to be worrying about right now?”

“Uh, don’t you mean _you?”_ Sasha pointed out, her virtual character’s damage stats appearing as the brunette began healing herself.

“Here, let me help,” Connie mindlessly began shooting her his vital points, and I shook my head as they once again amazed me with their love/hate relationship.

“Okay, yes, but I need your help to get to their headquarters,” I began pulling up my map, a few pinging icons showing where I was in relation to my squadron, “it’s a team located save point, remember?”

“You remind us like every night,” Sasha was now back up to full health, and took this opportunity to begin virtually eating. Based on the chewing sounds coming through my headphones, she was probably eating in real life as well.

“Gross, Sasha,” I could picture Connie’s face, and cleared my throat loudly into the mic.

“We’re getting nowhere, and losing daylight,” I pointed out, the sky already turning a pretty golden pink hue as the graphics depicted a setting sun.

“Right, why are we helping you again?” Sasha asked, her voice muffled as she attempted to talk around her food.

“What, you hate helping a team member?” I said sarcastically, scrolling through my inventory. “You’re helping me because of this,” I pulled a glowing golden stone from my pocket, letting it hover mid air for them to ooh and aah over. “The survey corps have been looking for this power up for weeks, and after several deaths and mission failures, I managed to procure it last night.” I paused for dramatic effect, “Besides, once I’m in the Survey Corps, your likelihood of joining goes up by 13%.”

“Hmmm, I still don’t remember quite why I wanted to help you…” Sasha began.

“I also promised to take both of you out to ice cream this weekend,” I replied flatly, making the two give high pitched shouts and then virtually high-five.

“We’re in!” Connie whooped, making me cringe and turn down my receiver volume. My ears were now ringing, but I couldn’t stop my laughter from trickling out. Where on earth did I even meet these two dorks?

“Titan war con, two years ago,” Sasha pointed out as we began racing towards the wall in the distance of the open-world map. I realized that I must have asked my question out loud.

“Fair enough.” I shot up, letting my equipment upgrades do most of the movement for me.

“Survey corps, here we come!” Connie gleefully swung over the looming mass of bricks, a few of the patrol players shooting us waves as we flew over them into the second layer of land in the walls.

The third wall had been breached, and was now a battle stage that players could use to gain experience points without actually leaving the regen zone. The regeneration zones grew as you headed further into the walls, the innermost wall only unlockable to players past level 300. Once you left the walls, you lose the ability to heal yourself, you lose selective player chatter (meaning you hear everyone talking and distances depict volume) and you gain the ability to hear titans as they approach. Once you pass the walls, you lose pre-programmed mapping, and there are less places for your 3-D maneuver gear to work, so it’s not recommended for anyone under level 35 in horseback riding.

The Survey Corps _known_ headquarters lay in one of the cities in the second wall ring, but there were several rumors that they had bases outside of the walls as well. In order for the mission that Connie, Sasha and I were embarking on to work, we had to go to the known Survey Corps headquarters, download the three separate hint charts, buy special fleet horses and glitch them to the third wall gate, and manage to find the rumored castle base within 1 hour of leaving, or the hints charts would automatically re-scramble and delete themselves, and we would have to wait another week before trying again.

“Alright, are we all ready?” I asked, hovering my mouse over the Save & Export button and carefully typing out the cheat code _3RD-LAYER-MISSION104._

“Yep!” Sasha said excitedly, a grunted affirmation from Connie following to show that he was ready too.

“Three… two… one… CLICK!” I rapidly spammed the Save button, the game freaking out and leading me to a glowing white screen before my character plopped down just inside of the 3rd wall exit gate on the black fleet horse that I had bought not a moment before. “Awesome!”

“Woah,” Sasha appeared a moment later, “I thought that I broke my game for a second. Eren, I would have killed you. Do you know how much this game cost me?”

“We had to buy it too, ponytail.” Connie’s horse glitched into the wall, but righted itself after a moment.

“Ooo, ponytail,” Sasha giggled, “I like it.”

“Alright team, we have less than 59 minutes left, let’s ride.”

 

\--

 

“I don’t get it,” Sasha whined for the fifth time, making her horse run in circles around a large spruce tree.

“Open up your chart again,” I said, scanning over the jumble of random letters and lines that made up mine. The clock was ticking, and we had just passed the twenty minute mark. I needed this upgrade, I _needed_ it. I had spent every resource that I had on getting that golden power-up crystal, and I wasn’t about to wait 7 more flipping days after getting this close, after _tasting_ it. Sasha obliged, letting out a few choice words before she led her horse over to mine.

“Ya know, I really don’t get what the big deal is with-”

“Wait!” Connie suddenly shouted, making me jump, “Sasha, don’t move.”

“What?”

“Just keep your horse still,” Connie carefully nudged in between us, his map open in front of him, “okay, Eren, raise your map projection up just a little bit.” I did as I was told, and my heart skipped a beat.

_There it was._

It was hard to read, and all of the landmark symbols were much cruder than the map that I had sketched out in my inventory on my last training run, but there it was.

A map.

Our locations glowed a light blue, a wispy trail barely visible to the player’s eye connected us to a mysterious yellow dot that I had no doubt in my mind was the castle hideout.

“Holy shit,” I whispered, my shaking hand coming up to cover my mouth.

“C’mon, we have less than 15 minutes left until this dies!” Connie instantly took off, the hint charts jolting apart and leaving us with our scattered symbols once again. “Huh?”

“We have to ride next to each other!” Sasha exclaimed, hurriedly rushing up to where Connie awaited. I did the same, and the precious map reappeared. “Go, go, go!”

We raced off, the fleet horses moving the fastest pace that we could have them at and absolutely draining all of our energy points. A few titan signals pinged at us along the way, but they were only in the 10’ class and too far off from our course to pose any serious threats.

The time was winding down.

“C’mon, we have to make it!” Connie bellowed, pushing forwards just ever so slightly more.

“FOR ICE CREAM!” Sasha cried, her voice echoing through my head like a war cry as we heard the ever so faint _click_ of boundary break in the game. We all froze, the map fading from our view and a few trees parting to show a roughly hewn stone castle before us.

“Is that…” I breathed, edging my character off of his horse and making him venture a few feet forwards on foot, “could it really be…” A small green notification popped up in the bottom right hand side of my screen.

_New Regen Zone Unlocked: Survey Corps <p> CASTLE </p> _

I let out a breath I didn’t know that I was holding, tears forming in my eyes.

“We did it!” Sasha sang, her and Connie breaking out into some song about castles and Survey Corps weirdos. I stared at my screen in a mixture of disbelief and relief, knowing that all of my efforts had really, finally, paid off.

_Take that, Mikasa._

Sasha and Connie dismounted, joining me in my walk of reverie.

“Stop! Who’s there?” A voice cried out, a new player dot suddenly appearing on the map.

Right.

I wasn’t actually _in_ the Survey Corps yet.


	3. The Castle Hideout

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year! *pops party popper*  
> Hey all, I hope 2015 was a great year for you, and if it wasn't we can all look forwards to 2016 together (╯✧∇✧)╯*:・ﾟ✧  
> Here's another update to welcome the new year, may it shine brighter than Heichou's eyes xx  
> Enjoy!

“You want to join?” The man asked, his arms crossed.

“Yes sir,” I replied, keeping my arms in a respectful salute. This man’s rank wasn’t posted, and I knew that that meant that it was higher than mine. Sasha and Connie had already left, fulfilling their part of our deal and making me swear over my mother being eaten by a titan that I would buy them ice cream tomorrow.

“Hmm… you do realize  _ where  _ you are, don’t you?” He said, keeping his avatar squarely in front of mine.

“Yes sir,” I wanted to say something rude back,  _ of course I knew where I was you ass _ , but I kept my mouth shut. I needed to be polite.

“Ah, it’s such a shame you came all of the w-” A sound of pain was flung over the headset, and I furrowed my eyebrows.

“Sir?”

“He probably bit his tongue,” A woman’s voice cut in, approaching us from the side. Unlike the man, she had her name listed above her stats. 

_ Petra Ral K. _

The name Petra K. sounded familiar, but I brushed it off. Everyone used aliases on here, I highly doubted that I knew her in any way.“I would like to join the Survey Corps,” I tried again, ignoring the moans of agony coming from her male companion in the background.

“Oluo, just shut up,” Petra sighed. The moaning stopped instantly. “Well, we’re not in charge of that, sweetie,” She paused, contemplating something. “You know how hard it is to get into this regiment, right?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but what made you think that you could come here?”

“Well,” I cued up my inventory and pulled out the power up, making her audibly gasp and choke on air, “this.”

“Is that-” She cut herself off with a rapid intake of breath, before slowly and shakily exhaling. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Yep,” I said happily, letting the treasure dangle before me in a promise, “and I’d like to use it as a token to be considered.” 

“Oluo,” Petra hissed, using her avatar to slap the man, “alert the Captain that we have a guest,” he began moaning again, still unmoving, “now, Oluo.” The man finally complied, seemingly moving only at the beck and call of this “Petra.” “Please,” she interrupted my train of thought, making me return my attention to her voice, “come inside.”

“Welcome to the Survey Corps Castle hideout.”

 

\--

 

“Would you like anything to drink while we wait?” Petra once again pulled me from a thought, making me zero in on her voice. “Tea? Coffee?” I sat in confusion for a moment, making her laugh. “You’re energy points must be pretty low after making it here, don’t you know that virtual caffeine is the best pick-me-up?” I cracked a grin of my own.

“Tea would be great, thanks.” I stretched a crick in my neck as I waited, adjusting my headset and glancing at the clock next to my bed.  _ Holy shit,  _ 1:00 AM? I needed some real life caffeine too, if I was going to keep this up. Petra’s character notification wandered off to what I assumed was a kitchen station, but I wouldn’t know unless I scouted out the castle myself. Right now my map was blank, only showing the characters that I had registered audibly and my distance from my team members. Damn, they had really gotten back to the walls fast.

I decided to begin sketching out what I could see, opening up my maps tab and setting up the border of the room.  _ Let’s see,  _ there was a large table in the center, a chair there,  _ there _ and there…

A throat cleared.

I jumped, exiting out of my sketch to find that I wasn’t the only character that was in the room.

“So, you’re the brat with the powerup?” His voice resonated, the programming in the game making his voice reverb off of the walls. I had to cough as the low growl surprised me, making me shift in my seat a bit. It was so authoritative and…  _ woah, Eren, what the hell? _

“U-um, yes sir.” I resumed my salute, my eyes flicking to his stats. 

Like the man before, his name wasn’t listed.

“Captain!” Petra exclaimed, nearly dropping the two mugs in her hands. Just like that, his rank popped up, the vocal cue showing that I now knew it.

_ Wait… _

I quickly pulled up the player logs, and the blank chunk with SCC listed to it was glowing green.

This was him.

This was the man that I had been basing my playing schedule around, this was the man that I had gotten this powerup for in the first place.

“Well?” The captain said, making me once again panic and exit out of the player logs. I looked carefully at his avatar, his black hair edging up into an undercut.

Huh, that hair kind of reminded me of someone...

Shaking this thought off,  _ like anyone I knew would ever even come near Titan war,  _ I returned to the task at hand.

“I would like to join the Survey Corps, Sir.” My voice wavered, and I silently cursed how childish I sounded.

“Show me the stone,” he said, never moving from his stance at the head of the table.  _ His voice sounded familiar, too _ , but I really couldn’t place my finger on it. I wouldn’t recognize it unless I heard it a bit more, maybe it was just someone I heard in passing once?

I swallowed, pulling it from my inventory and carefully approaching him with it hovering before me. “So this is the shifter power-up,” he said, and I could practically feel the palpable excitement that he held. “Do you have any idea what you are in possession of?” I shook my head. “Nor do you need to.” A moment later, his exchange screen opened. “I’ll be taking that.”

“Hold on,” I pulled back bit, keeping the stone close to me, “I came here because I wanted to join the Survey Corps.” He didn’t say anything, waiting for me to go on. “I was wondering if I could exchange this for that position.”

“We’ll consider it,” The Captain replied boredly, his exchange screen still faintly glowing. “For now, I’ll take possession of that power up. What good is it if you don’t even know what it is?”

“How do I know you won’t use it?” I asked, still hesitating. This was my one bargaining tactic, I didn’t want it ripped from my hands before I could even use it.

“Relax, kid,” The Captain sighed, “I have no desire to use that power up. I’m one of five people who know what it’s capable of, and even at my player level, it would kill me if I used it.” My eyes grew wide. I hadn’t had the desire to use the power up myself, and I was suddenly very glad I wasn’t one of those idiots who just activated whatever gem they ran across. “I want to give it to my head researcher, they would love to get their hands on something like this.”

“Who?”

“Holy shit, Captain you weren’t kidding!” A new voice joined us in the room, and I panned my perspective camera to see a woman with a ponytail similar to Sasha’s and a pair of glasses. Glasses were expensive in this world, so I assumed that this woman must have really loved her glasses in real life. A little swirled line next to their sex showed the gender as  _ non-binary. _

“Oi, Shitty Glasses, I told you to stay out of the room,” The Captain said, and I heard a  _ thwick  _ over the headset and an exclamation of pain.  _ So they must be playing it together in real life.  _ I was surprised to hear a ping and see the name Shitty Glasses appear over the new character as the audio cue registered that I now knew this identification.  _ That was their actual character name?  _

“I know, but look at it!” They exclaimed, grinning like a maniac as they approached me, holding out their hands like they were reverencing the golden power up. “It’s so pretty, ohhhh look at it sparkle.” I awkwardly shifted a bit further away, and they finally noticed me. “Oh hello there!” I waved, still unsure what to do. “So you want to join the Survey Corps?” I nodded. “You’ve got some guts, kid. Mind telling us your name?”

“Um, it’s Jaeger,” I exposed, hearing the notification ping over their servers. My character name was nothing fancy, just my last name.

“Jaeger,” Glasses repeated, “like the German word for hunter, because you’re a hunter of the Titans. That’s pretty cool.” I shrugged, forgetting that they actually couldn’t see me.

“Yeah, I guess so.” Inside I fist bumped myself, happy that  _ somebody  _ finally thought that my name was cool.

“Anyways,  _ Jaeger,  _ do you mind if I hold onto that power stone of yours for a few days?” Glasses began inching towards me, their exchange screen open and practically smothering me. “I’ll take really good care of it.”

“What does the Captain mean when he says you’re going to “examine” it?” I asked carefully, still afraid to hand over the golden mass of pixels.

“You know my name now, look through my stats kid.” They smirked, waiting for me to do so. I clicked on the now available icon, slowly scanning through before freezing.

“Level 300+ research ability?” I managed to breathe, convinced that I wasn’t seeing it correctly. “I thought that stat only went up to level 100!” Even then, the highest that I had ever seen had been 47. Their observation score read the same.

“Yup!” Glasses did a little jump, “That’s me. Highest research ability level and observation levels ever reached in Titan War. I can collect data on anything that I want to.” After singing a little victory song, they got back to the task at hand. “Oh, right, I was wondering if I could look into that powerup that you have.” Unable to say no, I instantly clicked the transfer ownership button. “Yay! Thanks you beautiful human you! Oooooooohhhhhhh look at the way those numbers fill out. Mmm, I can’t wait until I get you into the lab room all by myself and-”

“Okay, freak, cut it out.” The Captain interrupted, holding out his hand to silence the jittering of his friend. “Back to this idiot.”

“I would like to join the Survey Corps.”

“We get it,” he said flatly, examining every stat that I had, “it’s not that easy, you know.”

“Sir, if I may,” I exhaled, steeling myself, “I spent over-”

“Look out!” Petra’s voice rang out, and suddenly a fist appeared in the wall.

“Titans!” Glasses cried, running to the side of the room where a rack of extra weapons was being kept. “How did they even make it past our defenses?”

“Why didn’t we hear the alert?!” I shouted over the noise, honestly wondering if my game had gotten a glitch.

“We’re in a regen zone, remember?” The Captain’s voice was directly in my ear, and I nearly whipped my head around to see if he was actually in my room with me. I had to take a few deep breaths before panning my camera to see him positioned beside me, his hands positioned over his swords and his maneuver gear already strapped to his hips. I gulped, readying my own character for battle. Cloaking button, where was my cloaking button?

“Jaeger, look out!” Glasses cried, the Captain pushing me out of the way of the Titan’s long arm just in time. I gave him a nod of thanks, but he was already running up the outstretched arm to reach the Titan’s neck. It was then that another  _ boom  _ shook the castle, and we all turned in horror to see another fist appear through the wall, and then another. “Three?!”

“Glasses move it!” Petra shoved the woman aside, her agility points not enough to save her from the crushing force of the palm.

“No!” Glasses screamed, their previous casual battle stance replaced with one of fury, “not Petra!” Oluo appeared in the room a moment later, disappearing soon after as he was crushed under yet another fist. “Where’s the Captain? Where’s Heichou? Where did that short bastard go?!” I heard another  _ thwick  _ and a muffled, “ _ I’m sitting next to you, you idiot,”  _ before I spotted another muscled arm scooping around to hit the distracted Glasses. “Well you know what Le-”

“Look out!” I shouted, but it was too late.

Their avatar was crushed.

Almost like it was mocking me, the small, golden power up gem gleamed in the rubble, remaining as the digital spattered blood bubbled around the retreating Titan hand. Words couldn’t even begin to describe the utter loss and confusion that I was feeling. The best of the best had just died before my eyes, and I had done nothing to save them. Stumbling forwards, I reached for the power up to shelve back in my inventory, but instead of picking it up, I accidentally walked into it.

_ Oh shit _ .


	4. The Shifter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha I like your guys' comments xx  
> Thanks for reading!  
> （。＞ω＜）。  
> How's the first day of the new year for everyone? How many resolutions have already been broken?

“Explain it to me again,” Shitty Glasses sat before me, their voice quivering with excitement, “only this time, slower.”

“I-I don’t know.” I was sitting in the partially destroyed foyer of the Survey Corps castle hideout, the Captain flying around us as he cleaned up the wreckage. Apparently, he had a housekeeping level of 300+. Again, I didn’t even know that it went that high.  _ How do you even increase your housekeeping level?  _ Everyone was fine, because, as I had forgotten, we were still in a regen zone. If we had been outside of the castle’s reach that attack would have been deadly, but it had done literally nothing to affect the players. Well, it might have ticked the Captain off a little bit due to the amount of angry muttering I overheard as he swept at the dust and fallen stones.  “I just, reached for the gem, and moved my toggle a bit too far.”

“And…?!”

“And the power up,  _ worked,  _ I guess,” I stared at the golden fist in the bottom left of my screen, the bar beneath it recharging. “I didn’t know what was going on. One minute I was staring at your blood, and the next I was looking up at Petra as she stared at me in horror.” I paused, “Well, I assumed she was staring at me in horror due to the silence on her end of the mic. Can someone just explain to me what happened?”

“You shifted,” the Captain appeared behind glasses, the broom disappearing as he approached. “Do you know what that means?”

“N-no sir.”

“It means you turned into a Titan.” His voice was low, barely audible over the headset.

“Erm, come again?”

“It means,” his voice rose in volume, ending in a yell, “you were a Titan!” I was speechless, any words I could have possibly said were far from my mind. The only things that I had processed were “you” and “Titan,” and those didn’t make sense in the same sentence. “Listen, brat, I don’t know what kind of shit you’re pulling right now but it’s not funny. I’m trusting you around my team, and you’re withholding information. You should be dead right now. Your little stats should have erupted into flames and crumbled like a killed Titan.”

“I think he’s telling the truth,” Glasses murmured, still staring at me in keen interest. I tried to imagine what types of things were flying across their screen at the moment with their research and observation abilities.

“Look, I don’t know what’s going on-” I started, but was shut up by a stern look from the Captain. 

“You’re in deeper than you think, kid.” He began, “I may be head of the Survey Corps, but there are many,  _ many  _ people with higher rankings than mine. There are rules, in games like this, do you hear me? The military police might come looking for you,” The Captain sounded annoyed, “they’re probably going to say that you cheated.”

“Cheated?!” I cried, my breathing picking up. “I’ve never cheated. Glitched, maybe, but that was only to find this place. It’s in the official ruleset.” 

“We know,” Glasses sounded sympathetic, “but they don’t. You can’t walk away from a fight like this with no death points, especially someone your level versus ours.”

“My damage count is at -34,” I tried reasoning, “I have twice the amount of damage that you do!”

“You aren’t used to transforming yet,” Now the Captain was sitting next to me, his voice calculating, “you need to train your new ability, control it. Until you work at it, it’s going to slowly eat away at your damage.”

“Sir, I have to ask,” I hesitated, “are you angry because you didn’t get the power up yourself?”

“No,” he instantly bit back, still thinking, “I told you before, I don’t want that power up.” He turned towards me, “I honestly think that it was meant for you.” My heart stopped.

“M-me?”

“Yes.” His tone had a sense of finality to it, and it made my stomach drop. “My name is Rivaille,”  _ ping _ , “and I’ve decided that I want you for the Survey Corps, Jaeger.”

“But what about-”

“I won’t let the Military Police kill you.”

 

\--

 

“No way,” Connie’s eyes were bigger than the bowl of ice cream that lay in front of him, which was really saying something seeing as he got the family sized caramel java-chip sundae with extra whip.

“Bro,” Sasha chimed in, pausing her mission of eating her own family sized monstrosity, “broooooooo.” I sighed, swirling my spoon around in the tiny dish of half-melted chocolate chip cookie dough that sat before me.

“Well?”

“Well what?” Sasha had resumed her shoveling, a giant smear of crimson raspberry sauce running down her cheek. Connie used his sleeve to wipe it off.

“What do I do?” I groaned, burying my face in my hands.

“Um, you say yes?” Connie stated, a  _ duh  _ look on his face. “You wait for the transfer, and then you take it.”

“But the Captain, and the power up, and-”

“It’s really not that hard of a decision,” Sasha pointed her spoon at me, swallowing her bite before deciding that she needed her spoon for eating instead of emphasis. “Besides, isn’t this what you wanted?”

“I guess,” I pushed my dish away, Sasha instantly pouncing on it and mixing it in with her bowl of frozen sugar like it was another topping. “But not like this, not with a strange power up and the threat of an execution looming over my head like a fricking curse. What if the transfer gets denied? I only have one shot at this thing.”

“Yo, the way I see it,” Connie shielded his bowl from Sasha’s attempts at ice cream theft, “this might be a good thing.”

“A good thing?”

“Yeah,” Connie was now fighting a one handed spoon battle, “You’re the one that got that power up in the first place, I think that you deserved to have it. This Captain guy seems to feel the same way, and I say just go for it.”

“But,  _ death _ .”

“I’d trust the Captain,” Sasha was suddenly back into the conversation, dead serious, “anyone with a housekeeping level of over 300 is trustworthy in my books. He definitely has a plan.”

“I hope you two are right.”

“Of course we’re right,” Connie gave me a cheesy grin, “we’re always right.”

I was so screwed.

 

\--

 

“Mikasa?” I walked into my room to see her lying on my bed, flipping through one of my Titan war mangas.

“Your mom let me in,” she sighed, rolling onto her back. Of course she did.

“Hey Eren!” Armin popped out from my closet, nearly scaring me half to death.

“Damn, Armin, give a warning next time!” I clutched my chest, trying to calm down my racing heart.

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly, readjusting the strap of his backpack on his shoulder.

“You can set your bag down, you know.”

“Oh, right.” Armin dropped it at the foot of my bed.

“Er, why do you have your backpack anyways?”

“I need to study for my chem test,” He insisted, pulling out a huge binder with several carefully labeled tabs sticking out of it.

“Right,” I shook my head, “and why are you here?” Mikasa watched me for a moment before sitting up.

“We’re worried about you, Eren.”

“Worried?” I fell into my desk chair, swirling it around to face them. “Why are you worried?”

“All you do is play that Titan game,” She looked away from me, furrowing her brow, “I understand that you want to level up your character, but you need to focus on other things as well.”

“I do,” I defended myself, hugging my knees to my chest.

“The only thing you talk about is killing Titans,” Mikasa continued, holding up the manga that she was reading, “think about us. Think about your friends and family.”

“This just got really serious, really fast,”  I frowned, “why is this suddenly an issue?”

“Jean plays that game,” Mikasa finally relented, making me cough in surprise.

“Horse-face?”

“Yeah,” She traced the outline of the book in her hands, a look of concern still on her face, “I don’t want you turning into someone like him.”

“Mikasa,” I said softly, waiting for her to return to looking at me, “I’ve been playing this game for 4 years, if I was going to turn into a weird gamer asshole, I would have done so already.” She exhaled slowly, gripping the end of her scarf.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“So Jean’s somewhere in Titan war, huh?”

“Yeah,” She finally set my book down, laying it gently on top of my pillow, “I overheard him talking about it with his sister after school one day. Her college is on break and she’s started dropping him off and picking him up from school. She plays too.”

“What was her name again?”

“Petra,” Mikasa looked at me with curiosity as I made a sound of recognition.

“I might know her,” I said excitedly, spinning back around to my desktop and booting the game up, waiting as the theme song played through and the loading graphics brought me to the last place that I saved. “Petra Kirschstein, Petra K! I might have another person to talk to about T.W.!”

“What about Jean?” Armin interjected, taking the face that I made as a no.

“Petra seems nice,” I argued, “I feel like if I met horse-face in this I would slice him in two.” The resolution on the game finally cleared up, and I was greeted by the sight of my avatar lying in a bed that I didn’t recognize. It took me a moment to register that I was still in the castle, my stats still regenerating after the huge fight that the Survey Corps had gotten into the previous night. I decided to check the log books, and was met with a happy green light around Petra’s name. Quickly running out of the room, I decided to check the kitchen. When she wasn’t there, I followed her character tag to the infirmary.

“Oh! Jaeger, you’re here too.” She greeted, turning from her training task. She was leveling up her nursing abilities, and I felt a bit bad interrupting. My headset wasn’t plugged in, so her voice was coming through my speakers.

“Hey Petra,” I leaned forwards to talk into my bluetooth microphone, aware that Mikasa and Armin had dragged chairs up behind me to watch this play out. “This might seem like a bit of a weird question, but do you have a younger brother named Jean?” The silence on the other end of the receiver was a bit daunting, but after a minute it broke.

“Yes I do…?”

“I go to school with him,” I breathed in relief, happy that I didn’t just make things terribly awkward. “My name is Eren, I’m a Junior at Trost High.”

“Oh!” Her character spun around, now completely focused on me, “Wow, it’s nice to meet you Eren!” I grinned, “Huh, what a weird coincidence!”

“Yeah, this is totally strange,” I agreed.

“We should play together sometime during my break! I always like meeting my comrades in person.” She paused, “Wait… are you Eren Jaeger?”

“Yes?”

“You’re the kid that’s dating the girl my brother likes, right?” Petra confirmed, making my throat go dry. “Didn’t you two almost get into a fight?”

“Not exactly,” Mikasa leaned in over my lap, putting herself in front of the microphone. “Hi, I’m that previously mentioned girl. I think we’ve met once before.”

“In the parking lot that one time after school, right?”

“Yep,” Mikasa confirmed, scooting closer to the mic, “Eren and I aren’t dating, I just really don’t want to date your brother.”

“Mikasa!” I hissed.

“Oh, that’s completely understandable,” Petra hummed, “Jean is a bit of a jerk sometimes.”

“And they didn’t really get into a fight,” Mikasa set her lips into a thin line, “Jean grabbed Eren’s shirt and then a Senior stepped in.”

“Oh, so  _ that's  _ what happened,” Petra said, turning her character back to the medicine cabinet, “thank you for that clarification, I  _ knew  _ Jean was hiding something.” She quickly grabbed a few packets of health and put them into her inventory before turning back to us. “The Captain told us all to meet in the foyer at 5:00 today to talk about what the plan is with you, Jaeger.” She walked past me to the stairwell back up to the main floor, “Don’t worry, I won’t use your full name. I know how some people can get with that.”

“Thanks, Petra.”

“But c’mon, let’s see what they’re going to do with you.”

“What they’re going to do with you?” Mikasa asked, confused as I followed Petra up the steps. “Is something wrong?”

“A lot happened last night,” I put my hand over the mic as I talked, not wanting to confuse Petra as I addressed the people currently in my room, “I’d catch you up but I don’t think any of it would make sense to you.” Her eyes were locked on the screen, focusing in on the character icon that pinged to life in the hastily sketched map on the bottom right. “That’s the Captain, he probably just logged in.” She gave me a single nod, watching as I ascended and waited with Petra by the weapons racks. Oluo was already there, his map open in front of him. He looked up as we approached.

“Not good,” He revealed, turning the map towards us. I was a bit stunned by the detail that he had put into it, but then again the Survey Corps had a lot more access and time to explore outside of the walls. The most concerning thing about his map, however, was the mass of red dots that were heading for us from the innermost and the second layer wall. They were still about 20 minutes away, but they were definitely covering a lot of ground in a short amount of time. “The Military Police are more antsy than usual, this is the first time in a long time that I’ve seen them approach an issue before the 24-hour grace period is up.”

“Military Police? Grace period?” I was completely lost, trying to wrap my head around what he was saying. “How do they even know where this hideout is?”

“The head of the Police has a map with every hideout and safehouse on it,” Oluo said darkly, the dots steadily growing closer, “I hate that son of a bitch.”

“But wait, there aren’t that many people in the Military police,” I reasoned, counting the swarm heading towards us, “are there?”

“You’re thinking of the Military Police  _ Brigade, _ ” Petra explained, “the people coming now are mostly Garrison and Basic Military, we dubbed them Military Police because they’re just the guard dogs of the higher ups in the innermost and secondary wall.”

“Eren, what’s going on?” Mikasa was growing prickly, staring at the approaching dots with unease.

“It’s fine, Mikasa, really,” I tried to reassure her, but inside I was panicking as well.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen, this has never happened before,” Oluo’s voice broke, “what do they want? What are we-”

“You’re in this squad because you’re supposed to have a level head,” a calm, cool voice interjected the rambling soldier, “Oluo, we’ve been in worse situations.” The Captain walked into the room, Glasses following soon after. “Damn it, I thought that we had more time.”  I heard a snap over the mic. “How much time do we have?”

“16 minutes, sir,” Petra had her own map pulled out now, and was running through all of the possible routes that the Military Police could take, “14 if they cut through the center road.”

“Understood.” The Captain came up to me, his voice rough. “Do you trust me, Jaeger?” I shivered, and pressed the key that made my avatar nod. “Good.”

“What’s the plan?” Glasses asked, staring at their own map, several more routes and colors popping out as it’s data revealed itself to them.

“Oi, freak, can you run a scan on something for me?”

“Yes? But why?”

“Just trust me.”


	5. Walnut Brownies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all xx  
> Another day in the new year, hope it's going well （。＞ω＜）。  
> Here's an update, enjoy!

“How do you explain what happened?” The judge loomed over me, his podium casting a shadow over the metal pole that my character was tied to. “That was a power up that wasn’t even put on the player manual yet.”

“I don’t kn-”

“Do not speak unless I permit you to, soldier,” he cut me off, his booming voice making Armin squeak.

“Yes sir.”

“If I may,” the Captain stepped up, his voice reassuring me while confronting the man sitting before us, “Jaeger has nothing to do with the power up working.”

“How do you figure?”

“Look at the numbers,” the Captain pulled up a data chart that Glasses threw to him, “There was no tampering with the code, and all of the correct shifts in statistics occurred. If he had cheated, his damage levels wouldn’t have been affected.” I grimaced, it was true. My damage tolerance had decreased by almost 10 levels. I could trip, and I would sustain -14 damage.

“How do I know you aren’t lying to me right now?” The judge asked, gripping the sides of his podium with conviction. “You could have fabricated these charts just as easily as you could have found them in the first place.” 

“I’m not lying, sir!” I cried, “The power up just worked!”The Captain walked in front of me, his avatar emotion bar completely blank.

The next thing I knew, my screen went black and red, showing that I had been hit. I panned up in shock to see the Captain, before it went black and red again.

“What the hell?” Mikasa growled, moving her hand towards my controller. She didn’t play, but she could tell that something was wrong.

“Don’t!” Armin blocked her before I could, “Please, Mikasa. I think that the Captain has a plan.” She sat, seething, but let the character in front of me beat me until I had 17% of my health left. The edges of my screen were red, showing that I was critical, and all of my energy points began redirecting themselves towards keeping my vital stats running. The courtroom was a dead zone, meaning that it had had its regeneration properties taken away for executions. Whatever damage you sustained here wasn’t a joke.

“If we had been lying,” The Captain turned, “he would have only lost 48% health, not 83%.” The judge sat with a stats screen open before him, his player remaining dead silent as he realized that Rivaille was right. “Sir,” He continued, approaching the podium, “I would also like to request a transfer.”

“A transfer?”

“Give me Jaeger,” He began pacing the front of the courtroom, “Shitty Glasses over there can continue looking into whatever glitch made this happen, and we can train him. He may prove to be very important in the future.” Though half of my vision was red, I could still make out the “ _ Contemplative”  _ hovering just to the right of the judge.

“If I do,” he spoke slowly, like he had to carefully consider every word that came out of his mouth, “he’s your responsibility. Understand me, Captain?”

“Yes sir,” the Captain stood beside me, “I can take care of the kid.”

“Done,” a gavel tap sounded, and my screen shut off to a loading symbol.

“What?” Mikasa jolted, “What happened? Are you alive? Did you die?”

“Calm down, Mikasa,” I gave her shoulder a few pats before returning my hands to the control console, “they’re probably just untying me right now. I have to fill out a few documents before my transfer can happen, and I’m pretty sure the game is just queuing them up.” No sooner had I finished speaking than a screen filled with blank bars opened up, new questions appearing next to them.

“Oi, brat, can you hear me?” The Captain's voice crackled over my speakers.

“Yes sir.”

“Good. You understand why I did what I did, right?”

“I do,” I paused, watching the small spinning loading icon in the bottom right corner, “um, thank you.” He was silent for a few minutes, making me hold my breath. Was that a weird thing to say? I really didn’t want to push the Captain away, not after this. 

“Don’t mention it. I’m glad to have you on my team.” His voice sounded soft, and rounder than it had before. “I look forward to getting to know you, Jaeger.”

“I’m excited to be here, sir.” I was beaming, my fingers flying over the keys as I filled out all of the required fields. 

“Let’s get you back to the Castle to regenerate,” The Captain appeared in my line of vision as I pressed the “ _ Apply”  _ button, a small  _ ping  _ noise playing as a few of my screen options switched around. The distance meters on my map now read the distances I was from the members of the Survey Corps, and a new insignia sat in the top left of my screen.  _ The Wings of Freedom.  _ “Your uniform should be waiting for you in your new room, you can change before you log out tonight.”

“Yes sir.”

We made our way back to the Castle in basic formation, using a herd of burner horses that the Capital courtroom let us borrow. 

“You fit to ride a horse?” Petra asked me a few minutes into the ride, the jostling taking a few of my damage points away.

“We’re in a regen zone right now,” I reassured her, “whatever points I lose will come back before we exit the walls.” A small bubble popped up in my chat box, a request for private chatter coming from Petra. Shooting her a curious look, I clicked accept.

“I’m sorry, Eren. I didn’t know that the Captain was going to do that.” Petra immediately said, our audio channel now closed. 

“It’s fine, Petra, really.” I closed my eyes for a moment, letting my horse follow the formation on its own. “He did it for a good reason, and if he didn’t do that, I would probably be dead right now.”

“That guy is intense,” Mikasa spoke into the mic, a grunt of agreement coming from Petra. 

“He is, but that’s why he’s the Captain.” We exited the second wall, now entering the third land ring, “He makes the calls that no one else would be able to make, and I really respect him. I think that he’s the only man that I could ever follow in this game.” Her voice was filled with admiration, and I completely understood where she was coming from. “We’re nearing the third wall, Eren, I’m gonna close this chat.”

“Okay, I’ll talk to you later.”

“Talk to you later, kid.” The chat box disappeared, and I could once again hear all of the feed through the mics of my team members. Glasses was laughing at something that the Captain had said, his voice fuzzy and undecipherable as it registered through two separate head mics, and Oluo had begun attempting to flirt with Petra. There were a few more people around us that I didn’t really recognize, but I was sure to learn their names by tomorrow. One of them was commenting on the already setting sun, and the other was saying something funny about a glitch off to the side that was making one of the houses look like it was covered in Titan skin. Glasses sneezed, and almost the entire squad went besides themselves to tell them bless you.

I smiled to myself, content to sit back and turn off my mic for the moment.

“So,” Mikasa watched my screen, the light from my computer flickering across her pale skin “all is good?”

“All is good.”

 

\--

 

“Your mom let me in again,” Mikasa sat in my computer chair, looking up from her phone as she heard my door open. I dropped my bag at the foot of my bed, rolling my eyes. I had gone to breakfast with Connie and Sasha to update them on the details of my transfer, and had spent the last two hours of my life listening to the squeals of two people my age as they ate enough food to feed a small village and then some.

“I’m here again too!” Armin peeked out from behind Mikasa, a blanket wrapped around his sleight form and a cup of tea clutched in his hand.

“How long have you two been here?” I asked, noticing the empty mug in front of Mikasa.

“Only an hour or so,” she shrugged, “we figured you were out and decided to make ourselves comfortable.”

“I see that,” I noted the half-full chip bag laying at her feet and the mound candy wrappers littered around Armin. “I’m assuming those were once mine.” He nodded happily, taking a sip of his tea. “Okay,” I plopped down onto my bed, “why are you two here this early in the morning?”

“It’s noon,” Mikasa said pointedly, sighing as my expression remained the same, “I want to make brownies.”

“Um, why?”

“I haven’t baked in a while,” Mikasa said absentmindedly, clicking her tongue.

“Why am I friends with you people?” I sighed, falling back onto my bed. Mikasa stood up, leaning over me. The ends of her scarf tickled my face as she frowned, holding out her hand to flick me on the forehead.

“You’re the lucky one here,” She helped me up, motioning for Armin to follow us down to the kitchen, “we’re the ones who are friends with a socially inept gamer boy with the flirting capabilities of a walnut.”

“A walnut, really?”

“I want brownies with walnuts in them,” she plodded ahead of me, her tone of voice remaining the same flat lull that it always was. She waved to my mom in the living room as we passed, her greeting returned.

“Mikasa, we passed the kitchen.”

“I realize this.”

“Where are we going?”

“The store,” she said matter of factly, “Armin ate the rest of your walnuts.” 

“Armin?”

“I like walnuts.”

“Oh dear lord,” I had to take a moment to look up at the ceiling in a sense of disbelief before breaking out into laughter. “Armin? Mikasa?”

“What?” They both looked back at me, confusion apparent on their faces.

“Never change.”

 

\--

 

“Walnuts, cocoa powder, shortening, condensed milk,” I ticked off the items that we had in our basket on my fingers, watching as Mikasa sorted through the list in her head.

“You were out of eggs,” she said, “and those salt crackers that your mom likes.”

“What do those have to do with brownies?”

“Nothing,” She began heading towards the snacks aisle of the store, “your mom just likes them.” Armin trailed behind us, his nose buried in a copy of some book that he had found abandoned in the baking aisle a few minutes ago.

“I’m going to go grab the eggs, I’ll meet you two back up front?” I waited until Mikasa sent me a somewhat affirmative sound before heading off in search of the final thing that we needed, whistling the theme song of Titan war to myself quietly as I opened the door the the cooler and pulled out a box of eggs, setting it gently on top of the items in my basket as to not break them. I turned to walk away, my mind preoccupied as I rounded a corner to walk to the line of cash registers.

“I got the broth, and the chicken, what else do sick-Oi!” A voice cried as I collided with someone, the box of eggs falling perfectly from my swinging basket, opening in mid air, and falling on that person’s head with almost comical precision. A phone flew from their hands, landing a few feet away from us and skidding a few more.

“Oh my gosh, I am so….” My voice failed me as my eyes met a pair of livid silver ones, their expression anything but comical, “...sorry?” It took my brain a bit longer than usual to process the pissed off male before me, a handkerchief tied around his face and a pair of spotless white gloves adorning his clenched hands. The handkerchief used to be white, but it was now spotted with pieces of yolk that were dripping from his hair, falling just past his eyes and sliding down his cheeks to hit the garment. “Uh…”  
“What the hell?” he snapped, his voice dangerously low and sharp.

“Hey, look, I’m sorry,” I said again, my voice stronger this time, “I’ll pay for the eggs.” 

“Watch where you’re going next time,” he hissed, scraping some of the goop off of his head and flicking it directly into my face, “brat.” I stood, stunned, as a pissed Levi Ackerman grabbed his phone and stalked past me, throwing the crushed egg carton at my feet.

“What happened to you?” Mikasa asked, eyes wide as I approached the checkout line, still wiping pieces of shell and yolk out of my eyes.

“Nothing,” I said, putting the basket onto the counter with a bit more force than necessary. “nothing at all.”


	6. Stable Horses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all!  
> I had three cups of coffee this morning ٩( ºωº )۶  
> *caffeine induced maniacal laughter*   
> Anyways, hope you're having a good day.  
> Here's an update, enjoy!

“But they let you keep the power up, correct?” Mikasa watched me load up Titan war, biting into her fourth brownie as I finished bringing her up to speed on what happened in the courtroom.

“Yeah,” I selected load game, the theme song blasting through my speakers, “the Captain is to thank for that.”

“That guy that beat you up?” Armin confirmed, forgoing individual brownies and choosing to instead eat from the pan with a fork.

“Yep,” I admired my avatar for a minute in his new uniform before guiding him out of my room, down the steps and to the castle foyer.

“Jaeger!” Petra was sorting out some documents at the table, a cup of virtual tea before her as she waved me over. “Hey! How’s it going?”

“Great,” I smiled, sitting down next to her, “I’ve never been better.”

“Welcome home, teammate,” one of the men that I had first met yesterday walked over, his icon popping up on my map. “I’m Mike Z,”  _ ping,  _ “it’s nice to meet you.”

“Jaeger,”  _ ping _ , “and likewise.” 

“Hey Mike, have you seen the Captain yet? He’s registered as logged on, but I can’t find him on my map.”

“He’s up in his room,” Mike revealed, taking the spot opposite Petra, “why?”

“I need him to confirm some numbers from the new game update,” she frowned, “and he told us that we were going on a practice scout today to introduce Jaeger to the horses. Why is he still in his room?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t ask, he’s scary.” Mike had started helping her finish up the paperwork, “Maybe something happened today? He usually likes to take a bit of time to himself if something is stressing him out.”

“Hey, Jaeger?”

“Hmm?”

“I have to finish filling out these reports, some of the hideout data is leaked from a new bug in the update and we have to record the data gaps. I’m almost done but I need the Captain’s stamp on some of our records. Do you think you could convince him to come down for a few minutes?” Petra had paused to look at me, “Please?”

“I could try?” I stood up, making her sigh in relief. 

“Thank you so much,” She exhaled, “Oh, and Jaeger?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t talk too much, don’t keep your camera on him too long, don’t ask him any personal questions, and don’t enter his room. Got it?”

“Um-”

“Great, thanks!” Petra resumed her work, leaving me standing in front of the stairwell in a nervous shock. Huh?

“You got this,” Mikasa reassured me, a look of intensity on her face, “Armin and I are here for you.” I nodded, and began making my way up the steps. “You’d think we were dealing with a two year old, the way you have to talk to him.”

“I’m sure he has his reasons,” Armin argued, “not every day is a good one.” I stood before the Captain’s door, my heart in my throat.  _ Why was I so nervous?  _ I knocked, surprised when he answered after only two taps.

“What?” He bit out, “What do you want?” I blinked, my vocal chords seizing up.  _ Say something, damn it!  _ “I’m not in the mood for idling, Jaeger, what is it?”

“Uh, Petra needs to speak with you, sir.”

“I’ll be down in a minute,” he grumbled, moving to shut his door.

“Is everything alright, sir?” I asked before I could stop myself, Armin gasping next to me. The door stopped halfway before slowly creaking open again.

“What was that?” 

“Er, I was just wondering if everything was okay?” I tried again, deciding I might as well go with what I had said, “We’re all a bit concerned about you. You’ve been in here alone since you logged on, and I was wondering if something was bothering you.” His silence terrified me. “Do you… want to talk about it?”

“Walk away,” Armin whispered, “walk away!”

“Come in,” the Captain said after a moment, making all three of us inhale in surprise. Not knowing what else to do, I tentatively edged into his room, standing uncertainly by the door.

“We’re breaking rules #3  _ and  _ #4!” Armin was practically hysteric, but Mikasa shushed him.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” the Captain said flatly, making me stumble a bit further into the room. “You’re the first person that’s ever offered to talk to me,” he said a bit off handedly, once again making me nearly die of a heart attack. “You have guts, kid, I’ll give you that.”

“Is everything okay?” I repeated, unsure what to do with myself.

“One of my good friends is sick,” He revealed, “Shitty Glasses is over there now taking care of him, but I’m still worried.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh, it’s nothing serious. Probably just a cold, but this idiot doesn’t know how to take care of himself.” I heard him shuffle something around on his desk over the mic, “On top of that, I had a really unfortunate encounter with some asshat today that just really pushed me over the edge and ruined one of my favorite shirts.”

“That sucks,” I grabbed a brownie from the pan from Armin, making him scoff indignantly, “People can be really annoying sometimes.”

“Not only that, but now I have to deal with this glitchy update that’s putting my entire base at risk.”

“I don’t know why the game developers haven’t fixed that yet.”

“Right?” The Captain paused, “Thank you for listening to me, I guess.” I stared at the speaker on my desk, bewildered.

“It wasn’t that big of a deal, Captain.”  _ He was thanking me for listening to him rant for less than a minute? _

“I know,” He opened his door, “but thanks.” I could only stare after him in deft awe as his character tag headed down to the foyer to talk to Petra.

“Well then,” Mikasa sounded as baffled as I felt, “he wasn’t scary at all.”

_ Did that just happen? _

 

\--

 

“He’s mine?” I asked in amazement, petting the stable horse that stood before me. 

There were four classes of horses; Burners- cheap horses that died an hour after first being ridden, Trot horses- mostly used for cart transportation and physical labor, Fleet horses- fast but inefficient, and Stable horses- high end horses that balanced speed with agility and strength. Stable horses were hard to keep because, as their name suggested, they needed to be kept in a stable. They had to be maintenanced and fed, but they were also the only type of horses that you could name.

“Well?” Petra asked me, her character standing at the entrance of the stable with her hands on her hips, “Is he going to remain “ _ White and Brown Stallion 12” forever? _ ” I grinned, 

“I have the perfect name,” I typed it into the plaque above the door, letting it load before stepping back to let her see. She began laughing, snorting several times before she managed to calm down.

“Really, Jaeger?”

“What?” I clicked the name plaque again, “He looks just like Jean.”

“Okay, sure.”

“No, this is what I actually want to name it.” I re-entered the name, stepping back for her approval.

“Hannes,” She said, “I like it.”

“That’s a good horse,” we both turned to see the captain standing at the entrance where Petra was a few minutes ago, approaching us with his arms crossed. 

“Thank you for giving it to me,” I said, knowing that he was the reason this expensive creature was mine for free.

“No, problem, you’ll need it for today.” He walked past us to his horse’s pen, giving Isabel a pat on the head. “We’re going to do a quick scouting run to let you practice riding, and give you a chance to improve your map a bit.”

“Sounds great,” I fed Hannes an apple, “I’ve never ridden a stable horse before.”

“You’ll figure it out,” the Captain reassured me, “It took me a few tries to get used to it, but it’s not that hard.” He tossed Petra a map, “Meet back here in about 10 minutes, we’ll be following the trail marked on that.” With that he left the stables.

“Well, let’s go to the foyer and look this over.”

“Okay,” I followed Petra back into the castle, sitting to her left as she sat the map on the table. We both examined it, the trail marked in a scratchy black line. “What’s that?” I put my cursor over a cluster of triangular markings, squinting as I attempted to read the words scribbled over it. “Big… ass… trees?”

“That’s the forest,” Petra giggled, “this must be a copy of the Captain’s personal map.”

“Ah,” I saved a copy of the map into my inventory, deciding to ignore a few of the labels, including “dumb ass wall #1”, “dumb ass wall #2”, “dumb ass wall #3” and a beautifully drawn hand with it’s middle finger up sketched over the military police base.

“What’s the forest?” Mikasa asked loudly, directing her voice at the mic.

“It’s this huge chunk of super tall trees a few miles from the wall, it’s dense enough to use maneuver gear in but it’s dangerous because it’s easy to get lost in there. Character tags only show that you’re in the forest, they don’t actually show you your teammates locations.”

“Is that why you guys aren’t going in it today?”

“Eren needs more training before we brave the forest,” Petra finished marking all of the possible save points along the route, closing the original map with a flourish, “you’re a good player, Eren, but you need more out-of-wall experience.”

“Understood,” I agreed. We made our way back to the stables, Oluo and Mike already sitting saddled on their horses. “Hey guys.”

“Hello, Jaeger,” Oluo sniffed, his horse letting out a whinny as he pulled lightly on the reigns, “are you ready to experience riding a  _ real _ horse for once?”

“A real horse?” Petra mounted her own, leading it out into the pen holding area, “Oluo, we’re playing a videogame right now. Nothing is real.”

“You know what I meant,” he said, sounding a bit hurt, “we all-NNTH.” I started at the sound, but Petra just began laughing.

“Don’t talk while focusing on controlling a horse, you idiot, you bite your tongue every time.”

. I approached my stall, letting Hannes nuzzle my hand for a second before I put on his saddle and led him out into the open area. I attempted to mount him, but he stepped forwards when I did the normal key combination.

“Uh…”

“Grab his reigns before you mount,” the Captain trotted over on Isabel, “Stable horses are programmed to move on their own if touched by a character avatar.” I followed his advice, swinging onto Hannes’ back easily.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” he continued past me, leading all of us out into the yard. “Are we all ready?”

“Yes sir.” Our voices overlapped.

“Let’s go.”


	7. The practice ride

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all xx  
> Sorry for the sudden dramatic shift in update schedule, but as many of you are well aware, school has started again (ノ﹏ヽ)  
> This story will continue, I promise ☆(･ω･*)ゞ  
> How has your week been, nonetheless?  
> Thank you all so much for taking the time to read this, it's really amazed me the amount of hits that this has gotten so far xx  
> Enjoy!

“Oh, there are three trees there.” Petra pointed to to our right.

“Thanks, got ’em.”

“Aaand two over there.”

“Cool, got ‘em.”

“Aaand three ov-”

“The kid has eyes, Petra,” the Captain looked back at us, completely unamused. “I’ve been listening to you point out every tree, rock and stick on the path for the past half an hour.”

“Sorry Captain, I just want to make sure that Jaeger has a completely accurate map.”

“I’m sure he can take care of that himself,” He deadpanned.

“Oh! There’s the old forest!”

“We see that,” the Captain groaned, “besides, Petra, aren’t you supposed to be on Titan watch right now? What’s that on the horizon to the left?”

“We’d all get a notification if a Titan approached, sir,” Petra sighed, zooming into the distance anyways. “That isn’t a…”

“Well?”

“That’s a Titan?” She breathed.

“Is it, or isn’t it? That’s not that hard of a question.”

“I-I don’t know, sir,” Petra stuttered, making Oluo and Mike tune in.

“What’s going on?”

“Petra has lost her sense of deduction, apparently.”

“Why aren’t we getting notifications?” Petra whimpered, quickly typing something into her database.

“Petra?”

“That’s a Titan, sir.” She reported finally, making the Captain’s horse rear up.

“What?”

“It looks to be at least a 14 meter class.”

“That can’t be. Anything over ten meters gives us at least a two minute heads up.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, sir.”

“Captain,” Mike cut in, “it seems to be running directly at us.” We all looked, finding this fact to be true.

“What the hell?”

“What do we do?” Oluo pulled up next to the Captain, his voice quivering.

“Pull yourself together,” Petra scoffed, “this is probably just a bug from the new update.”

“Um, guys?” It was Mike again.

“What now?”

“It’s a female.” We all went silent, staring at the shape approaching us, unable to believe our eyes.

“Why is it weird that it’s female?” Mikasa whispered, Armin looking over at me with the same question.

“There are no female Titans,” I explained, “none, whatsoever.”

“Head to the forest,” the Captain veered off, the rest of our horses following the lead. We didn’t dare ask why we were going off course, knowing that we didn’t have time to and that the Captain must have had a reason for doing this. “We’ll kill it, just to be safe,” he began explaining, “We’ll stick to the outer layer of the forest, just deep enough to use our gear.” We all nodded, following a basic attack procedure and filing into a line. We had barely skirted the edge of the forest before the Titan reached us, it’s giant feet shaking the ground that we were riding on.

“Sir, what do we do?” Petra’s calm demeanor had cracked, something that wasn’t that strange considering the threat that we now faced.

“Let me use my power up!” I shouted over the pounding of the Titan’s rapid footsteps, “I could fight it off!”

“You don’t know how to restrict yourself,” the Captain replied, leading us further into the thick trees, “do you think that you could control it? You may damage one of us. We aren’t in a regen, zone, you realize.” I remained silent, thinking about what he had said. “I’m asking you a question, Jaeger.”

“Sir?”

“Do you think that you could control it?” He had turned to face me, the entire group now waiting for my answer. “This isn’t rhetorical, kid.” The Titan was getting closer. “If you can’t control yourself, trust us to handle this.”

“I’m not sure,” I replied, “I haven’t tested my abilities yet.”

“Trust us,” Mike said from beside me, his hand flying to his belt. “We’ve dealt with worse.” With that he shot off, his maneuver gear latching onto a tree and flinging him up to face the Titan. Petra gave me a smile before following suit, Oluo copying her soon after. Their horses continued to ride along with the Captain and I, staying in travel formation. I turned my camera to watch them, a bit excited to actually see the Survey Corps in action.

The three zoomed along beside the female Titan, their ropes glinting from the sunlight refracting through the leaves. I watched Mike and Zach approach first, swinging past her and making slashes at her shoulders and ankles to try and slow her down. Surprisingly, it did nothing. They made another pass, only to find the same result.  _ What?  _ The Titan should have had at least -10 damage from that, but it remained completely intact.

“Sir?” I caught the Captain’s attention, “something isn’t right.” He turned to watch the fight taking place behind us, our horses keeping us just ahead of the Titan’s pace. Mike went for the back of the neck to try and finish off the Titan completely, but it did something completely uncharacteristic for a Titan. 

_It_ _covered it’s neck with it’s hand._

Mike realized this too late, coming around and landing directly in its palm.

“Mike!” Oluo shouted, coming in to help his comrade, but the Titan snagged the rope shooting from his gear, pulling him into her hand and bringing her other hand up, almost in slow motion.

“No,” I whispered, the two hands coming together to flatten the two avatars. Blood shot from the collision, a few items that had been left in their inventories falling to the ground soundlessly. “Petra, get out of there, something is wrong!” I screamed, but it was too late. She swung forwards to try and get back to her horse, but the Titan predicted her motion and stepped with her, driving her body into the base of a tree. “P-Petra?” My horse continued to ride forwards, carrying me away from the violent graphics that I had just seen. This wasn’t a regen zone, that just happened, and it was  _ lethal. _ All of those years, all of that time, all of the energy and money that those three had put into this game under those characters was gone, just like that.

“That bitch,” the Captain had stopped galloping forwards, instead turning his horse back to face the female Titan. “You  _ fucker _ .” My hands were shaking, and I couldn’t see straight. This was the first time in a long time that I had ever been this angry. I hadn’t lost a team member yet in Titan war, and thanks to this phenomenon, I had just lost  _ three. _

“Sir,” I stopped my horse, putting my mouse over the golden button in the bottom left of my screen. “I don’t care if I can control it or not, I need to try.” 

He gave me a single nod, and I clicked.

 

\--

 

“Are you sure these numbers are correct?” Glasses looked over the battle replay that we had presented again, comparing it to a set of numbered charts that they had in their stats screen. 

We all sat solemnly in the foyer of the Castle, the three of us taking up one end of the table and refusing to look down at the empty seats. My distance from Petra, Oluo, and Mike was gone from my map screen, replaced with a row of small white x’s. There were still two empty slots for the members of the Survey Corps that I hadn’t met yet, but I knew that they would never compare to those that we lost.

“Yes,” the Captain said again, staring at the wood grain patterning on the table. “I wouldn’t have called you if this wasn’t important.”

“You two are just lucky that I had my laptop with me,” Glasses began typing something rapidly into their computer, a few more things popping up in front of them. “Eyebrows is doing fine, by the way, Captain. His fever has dropped a degree since you last saw him this morning.”

“He can go die for all I care,” the Captain said gruffly, but the relief in his voice was so evident that I’m sure Glasses knew what he was really saying.

“Well, back to the issue at hand,” all of the data tables closed out at once, leaving us face to face with Glasses’ avatar, “you were right. Something is off,” they slid out the damage report from the fight, “the Titan received no damage, and,” they then slid out a log of all of the notifications that we had received throughout our gameplay, “her coding didn’t register with your Titan notifications. Do you want to know why?”

“No, Shitty Glasses, I made you come on here to analyze all of this so you could keep it to yourself for future use.” The Captain smacked the table, “Tell us why, damn it.”

“She’s a shifter,” Glasses said, their voice void of emotion as they told us the disturbing news, “she’s a player with the same power up as Eren.”

“That can’t be,” I began breathing heavily, “I used my power up in the forest for the Captain and I to get away, but she apparently knocked me down and the Captain had to carry my avatar here on the back of his horse. If she was the same as I, we would have fought evenly-”

“Eren,” Shitty Glasses interrupted me firmly, placing their hand on my shoulder, “she cheated.” Armin made a sound of surprise, Mikasa reaching behind me to grab his arm in support. “Whereas somehow the coding for you worked, her’s was tampered with. She probably didn’t even earn the power up herself.”

“Another  _ player  _ did this?” The captain seethed, his voice dripping with rage. “You’re telling me that three of my best weren’t killed by a Titan, but by some shitty brat that thought it would be funny to try something?”

“She was most likely after Eren,” they deduced, “she input the code for the power up herself, and it probably still has some bugs. News of your little miracle spread fast, kid. She probably wanted to get the real thing.” They paused, realizing something. “That must be why yours worked.”

“What?”

“If this player already put the coding in for this power up into the game, it probably recognized it as a legitimate item. Because you earned the stone after a quest, you unlocked the code that the game programmers hadn’t even confirmed yet and it worked on you.” Glasses began checking my stats, the sound of keys being hit could be heard and I assumed that they were taking notes on whatever data that they saw. “We can’t track the original cheat because it’s not registered in the database, whereas yours is.”

“So we have a cheater in Titan war,” the Captain had pulled three Survey Corps insignias from his inventory, making me tear up. He must have collected them after they dropped from our fallen while I was passed out from my power up.

“Captain-”

“We’re going to find that bitch and take her down.” 


End file.
